Companies Jockey For Future 700 MHz Business

The spectrum is in turmoil as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) pushes forward with plans to re-auction a slice of the 700 MHz band, Congress considers plans to allocate the band to public safety, and as radio companies announce plans to build out public safety networks, long before anything is decided. Earlier this month Motorola announced it was seeking $50.6 million in federal grant funding to build an LTE-based radio network for the San Francisco region. Then last Monday, EADS Defense & Security and Alcatel-Lucent announced a agreement to jointly develop and market LTE radio system for the public safety market. In a press release, the two companies said they will jointly market systems to support voice, data and video transmission, all with complete interoperability. EADS is primarily an aerospace and defense systems provider, and is headquartered in Europe. Alcatel-Lucent provides a wide range of networking and telecomm solutions, and is headquartered in Paris. Read (pdf) the EADS-Alcatel press release here. Coincidentally, the FCC just posted a technical paper on the cost modeling for funding a nationwide public safety wireless network. The paper says the network could cost $6.5 billion over 10 years, equipping over 41,000 existing towers with gear and building another 3,200 towers in rural areas. After that, the FCC paper says, it would cost $1.2 billion a year to maintain the system Download (pdf) the paper here.